Thursday, April 10, 2008

Earthships ~ Home Sweet Home #2

An Earthship house is made up of rammed earth and recycled tires and bottles! Once the walls are in place, they are plastered over and appear very similar to an adobe style house. This is another type of Eco-Home building system (and my current obsession) using tires as permanent forms for rammed earth, passive solar design, rain catchment, and other integrated systems to create low-impact, energy-efficient structures. Earthships are being built all over the world!

Oh bliss...the interiors...I can just imagine what my happy, cozy little hovel would look like. I love the little nooks built into the walls. I would have nooks everywhere to house magical art installations! All the utility bills for one of these "off the grid" homes amounts to about $10 per month!

EARTHSHIP BIOTECTURE - this website is amazing! The Earthship, as it exists today, began to take shape in the 1970s. Mike Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotecture, a company that specializes in designing and building Earthships, wanted to create a home that would do three things. First, it would be sustainable. It would use material indigenous to the entire planet as well as reuse materials wherever possible. Second, his homes would generate their own utilities and be independent from the “grid” so they would be less susceptible to natural disasters and free from the electrical and water grids that Reynolds considered ugly. Finally, it would be available. He wanted to create a home that the average person with no specialized construction skills would be able to create.

4 comments:

Oh thank you, thank you for posting this!! This would work much better in my climate. I've actually seen these before, on The Discovery Channel I think. $10/month? Could you imagine?! Good Lord that is amazing. I think I want one!!